Gally goes to Anna's

I take Gally to Anna's (my coach) for a lesson.

I explain to her my saddle woes, and the success of the saddle fitting. Then we get on with the job of training Gally.

First she gets me to walk around on a loose rein, controlling with the legs, and only using the reins when absolutely necessary. Once he is comfortable with the arena, I pick up the reins.

"Do you think you can go into trot?", she asks sternly. "Ummm, no", I respond. "Well, then wake him up. Apply more leg, get him going. And when he is ready trot on." I do, and we're in trot. "When you want to go into trot, lean back a bit", comments Anna. The fear of hurting his back is still with me, obviously.

In trot we do circles, go large, change rein, more circles. Then we go into canter, go large, no circles. "Just focus on getting him to go forward", Anna is almost yelling at me. "He is a young horse, he just needs to learn that when you apply the leg it means go forwards. Keep him balanced around the corners, round off the short side, and just keep applying the leg." Gally is cruising around the arena in fine style. It feels powerful.

We go back into trot. "Have you ever seen jockeys ride?" asks Anna. Have I ever. I nod. "Have you seen how they use the whip? On the shoulder, hind quarters, shoulder?". I nod. "Well use it like that!", she says. "Give him a kick with the leg, then another, if he doesn't go forward enough, then use the whip like a jockey." I do, and Gally responds with a strong, forward trot. Beautiful. "Then just sit there, no effort, no leg, nothing", says Anna soothingly. "Get him to travel exactly like you want him to." Wow, it's so easy. Bit like what my girlfriend said once.